All conservatives should support Michael Gove’s green crusade

I appreciate that environmental policy is littered with unintended consequences and it’s not simple, but allowing the Left to dominate the issue of saving the planet was one of the biggest mistakes conservatives made in the late 20th century. One of the central points of conservatism is future-orientation: it doesn’t matter how much the Twitterati despise you, what’s important is that your great-grandchildren admire and appreciate the labours that made their world. Indeed if fashionable opinion is on your side you’re probably doing it wrong.

And yet, compared to the health of our planet, all other issues of posterity are almost meaningless. Instead the Right has cultivated a petrolhead image that goes against everything we normally stand for, solely because cars are convenient for the demographic most likely to support conservatives – reasonably well-off men. Cars pollute the environment, they make cities ugly, encourage aggression and bad manners, and ruin community spirit by making the streets unsafe for children. Our road was closed off over the summer because of underwater pipe work and for a precious few weeks it belonged to the children; I felt so much like I was in the 1950s I was tempted to send my eight-year-old down to the shops to get me some Woodbines.